Three Connecticut elephants were just given lawyers, and the case sways on free will

A group of lawyers asked a Connecticut court on Monday to grant three traveling and working elephants “legal personhood,” a status that would set these intelligent creatures free.

The lawyers, of the Nonhuman Rights Project organization, previously attempted to get courts in New York to recognize chimpanzees as persons, but couldn’t sway the judges to accept that some intelligent animals should be given the same rights to free will as humans. Now, the Nonhuman Rights Project filed a petition of habeas corpus — a report of an unlawful imprisonment — for three elephants working at the traveling Commerford Zoo, based in Connecticut. Read more…

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Source: Mashable | Three Connecticut elephants were just given lawyers, and the case sways on free will